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Tuesday, February 26, 2008

Some time back, I went nostalgic and fired up Animal Crossing, a old Nintendo title involving ditch-digging and weed-pulling that nonetheless held my attention for a good few months. (There's also a guitar-playing dog involved. It's hard to explain.) In the game, the player is a villager living in a commune of talking, clothes-wearing animals, all of whom demand the player's attention at least once a day. They get upset if the player neglect to speak to them at least once every twenty-four hours. (They're kind of bitches that way.) Needless to say, the residents of my humble burg were quite upset that I hadn't bothered to say hi in thirty-six months.

Also, I'd forgotten until then that certain more impressionable villagers occasionally ask the player to teach them new words. Case in point: Rosie, a blue cat whom I'd apparently taught to say "cocktease," a phrase that she has apparently been using rather recklessly these past two-and-a-half years.

It's true what the people promoting this game said: It is just like more enjoyable version of real life.